Thank goodness for Alleve. My dainty frame is just too delicate for that many hours...

Had fun as usual. Learned more and hopefully sucked less. Even brought a few folk with me (yeah, I'm coming out of the aiki closet more and more). Will bring more in the future. Slowly trying to spread the infection, but only among a few who are interested. So the rest are safe in their comfy hakama from the insidious evil that is whatever the hell it was we were doing.

Seriously, I had fun. Learned a lot. Thanks to Dan for obvious reasons, but also a big thanks to Gary for making it happen. Fun also to work with the guys from the Chinese persuasion as well as the folk from some other groups. Warms the heart to see so many folk from so many different areas comparing notes but more importantly, so many people trying to demonstrate what they've got (or haven't got). It is humbling for me each time to see just how far I have to go.

It was a fun mix....Aikido folks, Aikijutsu folks and folks from one of the Chinese internal arts. Everyone played together well. Tiring and all, overwhelming at times in the shear amount to information passed along......at the realizations of gaps and holes in ones understanding on how the body connects within itself, how to use the body as a whole and how soft compelling power is generated and used......... and we are only talking about three days of lower level body related practice, both solo and paired that is paradigm shifting.....and needs to be felt.

I want to make it real clear that the basis for what we were training......the practice..... is not Dan's and is centuries old in Japan and thousands of years old coming up through China. Dan was very clear that it was not about him....... One of the Chinese practitioners, who have trained with a number of high level Chinese in China, mentioned at the end of the seminar that the weekend provided an opportunity to touch, feel, sense and taste moments of very high level stuff. To be in it for a moment..... Then come back to the reality that the steps leading to those higher levels are there to be taken....if you put in the time and the effort. Again not Dan's stuff, rather the practice that has been around for seemingly for ever without us knowing it.

Enough said on this.....we will continue down this path..... if you take a step on to it...you can step back off with nothing gained and nothing lost...if you travel a short way down the path you just can't just quite and be honest about it.